1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for classifying a protocol family by using an IP in a TOE socket interface, and more particularly, to a protocol family classifying device using IP in a TOE socket interface for supporting both of a TOE card and a NIC in a Linux or a UNIX computing environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a network software layer architecture in a Linux environment for using a conventional TCP offload engine (TOE).
As shown in FIG. 1, generally, there has been no single socket interface provided for supporting both of a TCP offload engine (TOE) card and conventional network interface cards (NICs) in a UNIX or a Linux computing environment. Therefore, in order to provide a socket interface of TOE, a specific TOE application programming interface (API) 10 must be installed or a TOE protocol family 11 must be additionally implemented in a network module of the UNIX or the Linux.
However, a device using the API 10 or the TOE protocol family 11 for providing the socket interface of the TOE must be used by modifying application programs and re-compiling the modified application programs.
Meanwhile, an Ethernet communication technique includes additional functions for reducing and recovering errors generated during communication because the Ethernet communication technique is developed for long distance communication. However, the additional functions may degrade a communication performance in a system level network such as a cluster. Therefore, virtual interface architecture (VIA) for a system area network (SAN) has been introduced as a network protocol. The VIA does not includes additional functions for reducing and recovering errors but it guarantees fast communication.
However, the VIA does not provide the socket interface.
Accordingly, there have been various studies in progress for using the socket interface in the system level network protocol and representative one of studies is a socket over VIA (SOVIA) using a socket interface in the VIA.
However, the SOVIA provides the socket interface on a predetermined protocol.